MMA isn't kind to its aging practitioners. Fighters who finds themselves on the wrong side of the aging curve are only a short punch or kick away from staring up at the rafters with a cage-side doctor's flashlight shining in their faces.
Whether it's Chuck Liddell's chin crumbling under the assault of Rashad Evans, Shogun Rua and Rich Franklin, or Anderson Silva's body failing him twice against Chris Weidman, it couldn't possibly be clearer that this sport has no margin for error as fighters lose a step.
That never-ending slide toward increasing danger and finally irrelevance is part of what makes UFC 195's ultra-violent title matchup between Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit on January 2 so compelling.
At ages and levels of experience when most of their contemporaries have fallen off their peak form, Lawler and Condit aren't just holding steady; they're actively getting better in every phase of the game and putting their experience to good use in and out of the cage.
The champion has 37 fights under his belt in more than 14 years as a professional, and he turned 33 this year. Condit is 31, is a veteran of 38 bouts and just passed 13 years in professional MMA. Neither had an easy journey to the top: Lawler traded wins and losses in Icon Sport, Pride, EliteXC and Strikeforce for most of a decade after the UFC cut him, while Condit needed nearly seven years and 27 fights to get to the world's biggest stage.
At this point, both fighters possess an air of self-awareness and confidence that only experience can provide. They've seen it all, done it all and heard every last hackneyed question about motivation and training and how this camp will be different from the last. Neither has time for that kind of promotional nonsense, and they can be understandably testy with questions they deem unworthy of their time.
"I don't really pay much attention to that kind of stuff, who's getting the next this or that," said Lawler.
And that, in essence, is the charm of this fight. Neither man is much of a talker, but they're both perfectly aware of the violence they bring with them into the cage, and that's the selling point. "
"I've just got to be myself," said Condit, and Lawler expressed the same sentiment.
Why bother with the bull if it's not a real expression of personality? Condit and Lawler have made their names through sweat, blood and the generous, aesthetically pleasing application of their violent art, not by stringing together a few clever phrases and banking on charisma.
Condit makes no bones about it.
"I was impressed and I was entertained [by Lawler-MacDonald]," he said. "Fights like that, when I've been in those really gritty wars, that's what I live for. The true fighters in this sport, we live for that stuff."
To hear Lawler tell it, one of the best fights in UFC history was little more than a day at the office—a hard one, to be sure, but just a good day's work, and an enjoyable one.
That is a genuine sentiment from both men. It's easy to pay lip service to the idea of a knockdown, drag-out brawl or to claim that one wants nothing more than to go to war. Lawler and Condit have proved, time and again, that they're perfectly able and content to drop bombs and wade through blood.
The particularly striking thing about the way Lawler and Condit discuss that kind of uber-violent fight is that they never frame it in terms of what fans or the promoters want to see. Conor McGregor, for example, promotes his fights in terms of putting on a show and getting the finish, and he has openly stated on several occasions that he wants his style to be exciting because that's what both the audience and the UFC want.
For Lawler and Condit, that's not the case. Putting on bloody, violent wars is simply a reflection of who they are, not a concession to the needs or desires of the crowd. If the audience happens to enjoy that, and it obviously does, then so much the better. Being fan favorites is a mere byproduct of their natural inclinations.
Both men know this and know themselves. There are no mysteries left at this stage of their careers: Condit and Lawler are dialed in. When asked whether they were affected by having to train hard and cut weight over the winter holidays, neither expressed even the slightest concern.
"I don't gorge myself," said Lawler.
Condit answered, "I'm gonna do what I was gonna do anyway."
Their weight cuts have become less troublesome. "The more I do it, the easier it gets. Obviously the last two pounds aren't fun, but I'm good with it," Lawler said, and Condit echoed that he's honed his method and protocol over many iterations.
This separates Lawler and Condit from many of their veteran peers. The 36-year-old Urijah Faber, for example, has spoken about the strain the cut to 135 pounds put on his body and his preference for fighting at featherweight if possible. Dan Henderson has recently gone back down to 185 pounds after a long stretch at light heavyweight, where he didn't have to cut down.
Other veterans struggle to stay abreast of a constantly evolving sport, but Lawler and Condit explicitly embrace change.
"I'm a student of the game," Lawler said. "I'm always trying to get better. Once your skills are sharpened, then you want to add new wrinkles. This is MMA: If you're not evolving and getting better, you're not gonna be around long.
Condit feels the same way: "Just because a musician writes a great album doesn't mean they don't want to continue to write great music. For me, this is a creative outlet. Sometimes, we're trying to put together the same notes or the same techniques into different combinations to solve different problems."
They're smart, cerebral fighters, and these aren't just nice sentiments: Both have made serious, demonstrable changes to their repertoires in the last several years.
Lawler's game has improved dramatically since his return to the UFC, with some of the best defensive wrestling the sport has ever seen and a higher-output and more diverse striking game. His command of the intangibles of striking, such as rhythm and shot placement, is self-conscious and extraordinary.
Condit's evolution has been subtler. His footwork and movement are better, his angles have improved, he's sharper as a counterpuncher, and his relentlessly creative and unorthodox approach has become even more effective, as with the upward elbow that finished Thiago Alves last May. That perfectly placed shot took advantage of Alves' tendency to lean to the right and showcases the thoroughness of Condit's preparation.
UFC 195's headliners fit neatly into a broader trend in the sport. Many veterans these days seem to be finding their peak form well into their 30s after more than a decade in the sport. Rafael dos Anjos ran through the stacked lightweight division as a 10-year veteran at the age of 30 to dominate Anthony Pettis and take the title, while Fabricio Werdum was 37 when he claimed the heavyweight strap.
Werdum, Dos Anjos, Condit and Lawler aren't outliers. Faber is still one of the best bantamweights in the world at 36 and after 12 years of professional experience. Michael Bisping is better than ever at 36 and 11 years as a pro. Demian Maia has a decade under his belt and has gone 6-2 in the same stacked division as Lawler and Condit.
The list goes on, but the point is clear: Healthy living and smart training can extend a fighter's prime years. Lawler and Condit are both uncommonly durable—they've suffered one clean knockout and one injury TKO between them in a combined 74 fights—but both have explicitly embraced a more measured approach to training.
"I listen to my body," said Condit. "A lot of my strength and conditioning is geared around keeping me together...so it doesn't spiral out of control to the point where we have to pull out of a fight."
That's the attitude of someone who knows just how thin the margin of error is when the wear and tear of more than a decade hangs on his shoulders every time he goes into the gym.
The thumb injury that forced Lawler out of the initially scheduled bout with Condit at UFC 193, for example, was actually a re-injury. He first hurt it about a decade ago, and it popped again during a wrestling practice.
Lawler's understated verdict? "It's a weird-looking thumb."
When you've been around MMA for as long as Lawler and Condit have, you're going to have a few distinctively mangled body parts.
Father Time waits for no fighter, and the aging process in combat sports is rarely pretty. At least for now, however, Lawler and Condit are holding strong and benefiting from their nearly 30 years of combined experience.
Violence awaits at UFC 195 on January 2.
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